So, yeah, I like the video, but ironically, it's a video that relies upon a rather idealistic and romantic view of literary reading education. This is not to say that it doesn't provide much to consider in terms of teaching with passion and from the heart.

But, it's the text commentary below that video that I'm more interested in noting here. There is something about our attempt to justify literary reading by indicating it's pragmatic social value; in this case the argument, with which I have no complaints, that literary reading teaches critical thinking and by extension is good for society, that isn't enough or should I say clear enough.

Truthfully, literary reading is in many senses a very personal journey and when well-done with the guidance of an expert literary reading educator, an even more enriching personal journey into one's unique places in both the personal and social fabric of understanding.

Exploring one's personal place in the complexities of life through exploring the individual journeys of those fictitious characters in literature who represent the universal diversity of humankind connects the journeys of the many by personalizing them into personal connections for each individual reader.

Perhaps that critical thinking benefit of literary reading works because as individual readers contemplate their own motives and associated behaviors within stories expressing the wide diversity of human motives and their associated behaviors that both include and go beyond those of individual reader,s those readers might well come to understand reasons to revisit and revise their individual care lists.

And, perhaps it is THAT sort of personalization of critical thinking (aka introspection) that provides the potential for great benefit to all.

Improving literacy is challenging when learners are not engaged with the material. Creating comics engages students and encourages them to explore vocabulary, summarize information, and contextualize what they learn in a creative way.

Excellent! Information presented in an informative, if somewhat frenetic method. Really gets into why reading matters in a most entertaining way. The original site is full of resources organised into grade appropriate categories.

My birthday falls at the end of August. I used to joke about my annual present being the official letter from my district informing me that I was to "get off my butt and get back to work." I'd say it as though it was a bummer.

But, truthfully I was always excited by the prospect of at least a dozen or more great ideas I'd come up with that I couldn't wait to try out with my kids. I knonw, referring to my high school students as "my kids" is not the professional terminology. But, they were my kids.

It was my extension of the "in parentus locus" responsibilities associated with caring about them. I took those responsibilities seriously. So seriously that when I walked out the door for the last time after nearly 40 years, I actually still regretted the two times I had actually sent a kid to the office for behavior problems that I had failed to find a way to deal with that was effective and at the same time a win-win from the kid's point of view as well as from mine.

But, we all know the pressures involved in the job; essay correcting, unreasonable parents, teen angst and egos, policy police, budgetary tug-o-wars, and the natural complications of such a multi-layered hierarchy of decision making whose final word is influenced so much by lay persons with little actual knowledge of the best practices and pedagogies that may or may not be what is the best practice or pedagogy for indivdual students.

I have no doubt that these sorts of elements of any job exist. Like most important work, it can be very hard, exhausting, and often frustrating at times.

And, we've all seen a veteran or two who have been defeated by these challenges and who have had their original enthusiasm and optimism sucked out of them to the point where the mechanisms they employ to deal with these challenges have become thick fortresses of insulation leaving students and colleagues with little to see of that teacher's original vim, vigor, and caring about both the subject matter and the students.

I discovered somewhere along the line that it is important to refresh that caring; to find ways to remember why we became educators.

I came to think of the process as marinating in my love of literature or taking time to go to a literary spa of sorts whether I'd know I'd walk out of that "spa" feeling refreshed and invigorated. Sometimes that "spa" was a real location. A weekend at the Slyvia Beach Hotel (http://www.sylviabeachhotel.com) in Nye Beach, Oregon. Ah! An Oregon hotel on the ocean where every inch and moment is dedicated to book lovers.

In reality, it did not take many "spa" experiences to remind me of my love of reading great literature. But, if one or two a year left me so refreshed, why not 10 or 20 or heck, why not 187 or so as in why not refresh every morning?

So I began getting up in time to spend a leisurely 30 minutes or so exploring a story or two at one of the many virtual spas on the internet where book lovers gather to share their love of literature.

Sometimes I'd head off to TED TALKS (http://www.ted.com) and watch an inspiring talk about topics in all areas and remind myself that there was a time in my own youth when I too, like my own students hadn't yet discovered an interest in "this or that other curricular area." And, I'd remember some teacher who had found a way to make a previously "boring" subject fascinating. It might have been Mr. Tinling's geometry class, Ms Alexander's history class, Mr. Muńoz's Civics class. And, like these and other great teachers and like the great TED Talk speakers I would get a daily dose of love of teaching.

How could I get to school and not want to be that kind of a teacher for "my kids"?

It didn't eliminate the challenges. But it kept them in their proper perspective. And, remembering how much I'd come to love literature and how much I owe to those teachers who shared their love of literature in ways that even the reluctant might find unavoidably captivating proved to be just the daily dose I needed to remind me that caring about "my kids" was the key to keeping the challenges associated with being an educator to be remembered in perspective.

Take a quick look at these websites for literature lovers and think of them as virtual "daily spa treatments" where you just can't help but head off to another day with your kids as refreshed and enthusiastic as they hope all of their teachers will be that day.

I can't help but wonder how many of these "everyday phrases" actually are still everyday phrases. That is, are they too just something "old people" say?

"Chickens coming home to roost"?

"Method to his madness"?

"Bite the dust"?

Really? Are these stiil everyday phrases?

To be clear, I'm not suggesting that these phrases are not phrases that today's students can learn and come to understand. I'm simply suggesting that if the point is that they might be interesting to students because they ARE everyday phrases, as in they hear them frequently, and therefore might be potential engagement bridges between their own lives and the classics from which they originated, that this might not be a valid conclusion to draw or rely upon when designing an engaging learning experience for many 21st century learners.

I kind of felt a similar question when I first showed West Side Story to my students a few decades ago. When it came out it was a modern day adaptation of Romeo and Juliet. And, supposedly generated engaged traction with young people who were young THEN. But, that bridge is pretty aged now.

Don't get me wrong, there are still fans of West Side Story, even among today's youth. But, for many the fact that it is a modern day adaptation just doesn't hold. Gangsters wearing neckties?

That's funnier than it is bridging for many.

There is a surge of modern day Shakespeare (and other classic literature) adaptations coming from Hollywood today. They may well be perceived and thus more welcomed as "modern day" bridges to the classics. And, they will succeed in ways that West Side Story succeeded when it actually looked at least a little bit like what Hollywood teenagers looked like to teenage audiences in 1961. Teen age audiences in 2013 are not seeing a Hollywood version of contemporary teens in West Side Story.

And, I'm all for recognizing that best practices change or evolve in order to create more successful connections for students and educators of the day. The Leonardo DiCaprio version of Romeo and Juliet, though clearly "Hollywoodized" had a much closer similarity to its contemporary teen audiences in 1996.

But, that very recognition is also at the heart of my realization that best practices, like #1 songs, fads, fashions, box office blockbuster movies, like video games, like so much that we know can move massive numbers of people to engage enthusiastically in that particular area of interest, has a shelf life.

Remember Gangham Style? CDs? Neighborhood video rental stores?

Connecting to the contemporary is a great practice while that connection is in fact contemporary.

Some things never quite die, but their attractiveness as a means of generating engaging "contemporary" connections begins to fade for at least a very large proportion of those who once were captivated by those contemporary connections. And, I'd suggest that we amplify the problem by also considering those students who really are too young to have ever been a contemporary beneficiary of the powerful connections as likely to "appreciate the contemporary connections" for resources that never were contemporary in their own lifetimes.

Perhaps the shelf life of contemporary connectivity ought to be considered. And, best practice regarding the use of "aging" resources, might require the moving those resources from the required learning experience shelf to the optional learning experience shelf.

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